Saturday, December 14, 2013

When Gort first visited in 1951, it spent little effort on climate change issues, focusing on other aspects of our planet instead:

Gort returned in 2012 to answer puny human climatologist questions about whether climate change caused particular weather phenomena by making an obvious point: rather than struggle with theoretical analysis, you can simply use your Climate Changeometer to remove all the excess greenhouse gases and aerosols above natural levels and then measure the outcome. Comments at the link suggested temps on land would respond to Gort quickly, within a week or so, while temps above the oceans could take months and years.

Gort now brings us an upgrade.

The Climate Changeometer now comes with Ocean Dethermalization. The point is to think how current weather patterns are affected by anthropogenic climate change, so it's necessary to consider the vast majority of that heat accumulating in the oceans. Gort instantly removes that heat at the same time as it put the atmosphere back to 1860 levels. The Dethermalizer also depuffenates the oceans from the sea level rise caused by thermal expansion. I'm not sure how quickly the oceans would drop - if it's instantaneous, let's assume Gort will buffer any tsunami type effect.

I'd guess is that if you apply this experiment to a tropical storm a few days away from landfall, it would have a significant effect on that storm. I think this is a helpful way to communicate how we've changed our climate. It's probably more scientifically meaningful on a global and longer term level than about immediate weather phenomena, which might be why there's actual scholarship about it (thanks MMM). On the level of immediate weather, this combats the delayist/denialist dodge that attribution for individual weather events is impossible (allegedly), so there's no point in discussing climate change when we face weather tragedies that are made more likely by climate change.

One other point - I do like the argument that we're living in the Anthropocene such that but for climate change, the individual weather events we see wouldn't have happened. I made the argument a while back, glad to see it more prevalent now.

No doubt Mr. Gort was paying a courtesy call on the prominent Vegan, Mr. Gore, who lives thereabouts. You'll recall he arranged funding for the Terran Internet a while back, bringing the Galaxy such innovations as the laugh track and lolcats.

Fortunate for the Terrans, you know; given the demand by the Galaxy for new laugh tracks and lolcats, that plan to build a bypass and turn Sol into a blinkenlight has been indefinitely postponed.

ps, Brian in last year's post mentions the consequences "If the CO2 were suddenly removed" from the almost dry stratosphere.

I'd suggest modeling, instead what happens after air travel has sufficiently moistened the stratosphere.

Once there's sufficient moisture available, the Vegan Protocol recommends toggling the climate control bacteria seeded during Gort's first visit, into a reproductive boom.

You recall these:

------" Three bacterial colonies, namely, PVAS-1, B3 W22 and B8 W22 were, however, totally new species. All the three newly identified species had significantly higher UV resistance compared to their nearest phylogenetic neighbours. Of the above, PVAS-1, identified as a member of the genus Janibacter, has been named Janibacter hoylei. sp. nov. The second new species B3 W22 was named as Bacillus isronensis sp.nov. and the third new species B8 W22 as Bacillus aryabhata.

The precautionary measures and controls operating in this experiment inspire confidence that these species were picked up in the stratosphere. While the present study does not conclusively establish the extra-terrestrial origin of microorganisms, it does provide positive encouragement ...."http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090318094642.htm

Alternatively, we could go the Stratospheric Algae Bloom route, but that would pretty much choke off air travel by the humans, until their jet engines get equipped for filter feeding.

Eunice, dear, you are forgetting that climate-related damages have quadrupled since 1970, while there is no such increase in geologically related disasters. Do come back when you have something relevant to contribute.

My, an anonytroll seems to be having a problem with elementary logic. If property value is changing for property damaged in climate related disasters, would it not also have changed for geological disasters?

"Research published by US National Academy of Sciences warns climate change impacts could be worse than thought"

Yes, people like to believe sensational newspaper articles full of weasel words rather than actually look at the data - it might, after all, threaten their pre-conceived ideas and they have to start conceiving again.

That sensational article is not fit to line your digital birdcage with.

But just to play along:

"droughts, famines, epidemics"

Can you name a decade on earth in which there were no "droughts, famines, epidemics"?But even if you could, have all your logic filters failed that you believe the hystericsof this article?

Droughts are warmer ( at least in summer ) than non-droughts because the heat capacity of soil is diminished when it's drier.But it is a logic trap that the emotional fall into to project the converse. A warmer world should have more, not less precipitation which governs most drought. That may be why the PDSI chart above that you can't bring yourself to even acknowledge, indicates trends are much less than variation ( meaning the warming effect is irrelevant ) and that what trend there is, is toward LESS drought.

You might have missed it, but obesity is now a larger problem than malnutrition.And growing:http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/In the aggregate, things got that way because production is growing even faster than population.

You do realize, don't you, that most deaths from all causes, but especially from diseases strike during the COLD season and that human deaths reach their low during the HOT season?

Global warming is real but that doesn't mean you should be hysterical about itanymore than you should be hysterical about the warming from now through March.

"Global warming is real but that doesn't mean you should be hysterical about it anymore than you should be hysterical about the warming from now through March."

Eunice, if you admit that AGW is real, why not just admit that you don't care about it as long as you don't have to make any personal sacrifices, because what happens to other people doesn't matter to you? You'd be a heroine to a lot of other closet climate realists.

The question is, can you be sure AGW won't affect you personally? Can you afford to be wrong?

"Can you name a decade on earth in which there were no "droughts, famines, epidemics"?" Can you name a decade that had a stronger landfalling cyclone than the one that recently landed in the Phillipines?

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Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett, a not quite failed professorial techno-bunny who finally handed in the keys and retired from his wanna be research university. The students continue to be naive but great people and the administrators continue to vary day-to-day between homicidal and delusional without Eli's help. Eli notices from recent political developments that this behavior is not limited to administrators. His colleagues retain their curious inability to see the holes that they dig for themselves. Prof. Rabett is thankful that they, or at least some of them occasionally heeded his pointing out the implications of the various enthusiasms that rattle around the department and school. Ms. Rabett is thankful that Prof. Rabett occasionally heeds her pointing out that he is nuts.